Prayer

Prayer, or personal communication with God, is basic to receiving peace of mind in a spiritual life. This section gives experiences and counsel from people who have wrestled with themselves and with God’s commandments in prayer to solve a large variety of problems. To find articles more specifically focused on prayer, click Prayer in the menu under Everyday Faith.

A while back I added some whale inner ear bones to my fossil collection. When I first tell people what they are, I get a lot of incredulous looks. Whales don’t have ears, right? Well, actually they do (although it’s all internal). In fact they have a wonderful sense of hearing even though it differs a little from ours.
Let me sidetrack for a moment and tell a quick story that happened last week. Natalia, my middle child, was worried about going back to school after the holiday ...

It was 1959. An eleven-year-old living in Northern California, I was the second oldest of six children in a religious family. Although I was an obedient girl and said my prayers every night, all my needs seem to have been met by my parents, and as a result, I had not yet had any direct experience with answers to prayer. Here is the story of the first recorded instance, told in the relevant excerpts from my diary at the time:
March 10, 1959
We had a lesson in church about being mod...

The gears shrieked and the engine groaned as the U-Haul I was driving labored slowly up Parley’s Canyon, while other vehicles whizzed indignantly past. Finally Liz, my 16-year-old daughter following me in the family car, couldn’t take the sluggish pace any longer. Despite instructions to stay behind the truck, she pulled out into the left lane, stomped on the accelerator, and soon disappeared from sight.
Three reluctant children and I were moving from California to South Dakota to begin...

For most people the word "home" evokes feelings of security, happiness, and belonging.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches many important principles about what should happen within the walls of a home in order to create these feelings. It's in the home that relationships are strengthened, children taught, and joy felt.
Families can work together to make their home a sacred center for family life, a place where each family member feels a sense of belonging and a place of ref...

Prayer has great benefits at home. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that successful marriages and families are handled with prayer. According to research, couples report that prayer brings them closer to God and helps them reduce their anger. They also say they are able to change their perspective and receive divine instructions through prayer. Many couples rely on prayer when addressing marital problems, and they report its helpfulness in dealing with conflict, increasing pos...

Prayer can be defined as a two-way personal communication between an individual or couple and God. It is a vibrant, vital link with a Supreme Being that gives meaning to a person's life. Prayer allows individuals, couples, and families to come closer to God through healing. Prayer can be meditative (silent), colloquial (asking for abstract things like guidance or forgiveness), petitionary (asking for materialistic things), or ritual (memorized or read from a book). While it can be all of the...